The Invisible Challenges of Game Aggregation: an Interview with iGaming Express

David, our Business Development Manager recently sat down with the team at iGaming Express to discuss the invisible challenges of games aggregation and how we, at St8, tackle them through our agility, adaptability and close collaboration with both providers and operators.

Read the interview below:

What does the first stage of an aggregator’s work look like when it has to connect multiple providers with different technical standards, documentation quality, and development pace?

DF: First and foremost, it involves a significant amount of preparation on the technical infrastructure side. Accommodating integrations with different requirements, levels of complexity, and technical depth is far from easy.

Integration is often seen as a straightforward process; you connect technical teams, follow the protocols and write the code. In reality, when you’re dealing with multiple providers, each with different requirements and often operating across various verticals, it’s anything but simple.

We need to ensure we have the right infrastructure, the right know-how, and the right solutions to support these integrations effectively. Plugging in the code is just one step. Making it work seamlessly for operators in the long run is the real challenge.

Operators don’t just want access to content or products- they want to use them in a way that genuinely benefits their business. They are looking for full-service solutions that deliver the best possible player experience: bonuses, promotions, detailed reporting, and the ability to track and account for all these activities.

So the first stage is very much about evaluating everything that goes beyond the code itself.

Once the integration is live, what most often causes problems in day-to-day operations? Which elements tend to “break” most easily?

DF: The biggest headache is dealing with divergent ways of working. Every client has its own workflows, timelines, and internal processes, and we constantly need to adapt to them.

Even something as simple as invoicing can become a challenge. Some providers invoice at the beginning of the month, others mid-month, and some at the end. While these may seem like minor issues, they quickly become operational challenges, especially for accounting and finance teams that must accommodate all these differences.

What challenges appear only when the number of providers, games, and operators grows, and were not visible earlier?

DF: It very much builds on what I mentioned earlier. As the number of providers and operators increases, so does the number of workflows we need to support. Every partner comes with their own way of doing things.

Whether it’s launching schedules, bonuses, promotions, or reporting, everyone wants solutions delivered in the way they’re used to. From our side, that means constant tweaking, adjusting, and adapting to keep everything running smoothly.

As scale increases, what turns out to be more difficult: quickly adding new content or maintaining stability and order across the entire ecosystem?

DF: From a purely technical perspective, adding content and scaling is probably the easiest part. The real challenge lies in maintaining order- aligning solutions, workflows, and processes across a wide range of requirements.

We currently work with over 200 providers, and each one has its own way of operating. The amount of organisation, planning, and resources required to manage that complexity is significant.

On top of that, we are a mid-sized business, so our headcount is naturally limited. This is where agility becomes essential. I’d say we are highly adaptable and constantly looking for new ways to make things work; through automated workflows, extensive use of AI tools and other efficiency-enhancing solutions to reduce friction and deliver smooth, reliable products and services to our clients.

When the same game is launched in different regulated markets, legal differences start to appear. From the aggregator’s perspective, what does adapting a single game offering to multiple jurisdictions look like in practice?

The technical preparation of the game itself sits with the game provider. However, because we are licensed in key regulated jurisdictions, there is also significant preparation required on our side.

Regulatory requirements can vary widely from one market to another, and infrastructure or solutions that work in one jurisdiction don’t necessarily translate to another. This goes far beyond technology alone. Bonuses, reporting, compliance checks, and other operational elements all need to be aligned.

At a high level it may sound straightforward, but in practice it means coordinating multiple moving parts simultaneously to ensure full readiness across all markets.

Which compliance areas generate the biggest challenges today: certification, limiting game features, or something else?

It’s really a combination of all of these. On the one hand, you need to meet certification requirements; on the other, you still have to support the commercial and operational needs of your clients.

In markets where certain game features are restricted,   From our side, the challenge is maintaining strict compliance without limiting our clients’ ability to deliver a compelling player experience and this inevitably comes at a cost.

In practice, it often results in additional operational workload, such as more detailed invoice checking, repeated back-and-forth discussions with clients over deductions and calculations, and increased administrative complexity. This administrative burden is already significant due to existing compliance regulations, and these added commercial activities only make it more demanding to manage effectively. When you combine this with the growing tendency of slow responses from stakeholders, it becomes one of the most challenging aspects of operating as a fully compliant aggregator today.

An aggregator sits between game providers and operators. How does this role evolve over time, and which challenges remain largely invisible from the outside?

A strong aggregator becomes an integral part of the business on both sides. We’re not just a technology or service provider- we are a partner that truly understands what works for providers and operators alike.

Our role is to solve problems quickly and smoothly, ensuring there are absolutely no disruptions to operations. The invisible challenge is adaptability and agility: how we align internally, streamline processes, and respond fast without adding unnecessary complexity. And frankly, this is far from easy. Our position between providers and operators means we need to ensure operational readiness from both sides. This requires significant time and effort and can often be a source of frustration. Slower response times, limited flexibility, and insufficient capability to keep pace with evolving player and market demands are making aggregation operations more complex and difficult to manage. This is why strong collaboration, technical preparedness, and regulatory agility are more critical than ever.

What is the most frustrating, repetitive aspect of an aggregator’s job that hardly anyone talks about?

Chasing deadlines. Partners often underestimate timelines and have unrealistic expectations.

Take promotions as a simple example. A provider may launch a promotion and expect an operator to roll it out immediately, without factoring in the preparation required like building campaigns, preparing visuals, creating communications and so on.

As a result, we constantly find ourselves explaining why certain steps are necessary and why tasks must be done in a specific order. It’s repetitive work, but essential for keeping everything running smoothly.

Find the official article here.